Imaginary Shoes, Imaginary Street
by Goddessofice1
Summary: AU: Squall is a dazed boy who walks on the opposite sidewalk of the mysterious ebony haired girl, Rinoa, every morning, who wordlessly dares him to deliberately disobey his own mind. Terror has never felt this good. SxR


**AN: **I'm staring a new story with a new feel based on how I think. That's really what this story is, is images and words popping into my head. Whether this story lasts long is up to you and the feeling of whether I am writing for somebody or not, so reviews letting me know what you think would be splendid.

**And the first one tore a picture**

**Of a dead and hanging man**

**Who was kissing foreign fishes**

**That flew right out from his hands**

**And when I put my arms around him**

**Felt the blushing blood run through my cheeks**

**And an eerieness surrounded**

**When his tongue began to speak**

**And he said, "oh, boy, you are so pretty,**

**Enough to wrap tight in rice-paper string"**

**And when I finally kissed him**

**The whole world began to ring**

**-Neutral Milk Hotel**

**Prologue**

There are certain things in your life that you will always remember. And with every memory you can incorporate scents, and even the way your stomach felt. As Rinoa explained. The way your stomach felt. It brings about the best memories. As long as you remember where the tingle was, you can remember the moment perfectly. And I recall every moment with her. And even when I see her now, like somebody lighting my clothes on fire, the feelings rush through my body along with insignificant pictures that float in and pop in my brain. My skull. That you can see directly through. That you can still see the finger marks burned into. Her small fingers. Rinoa would take and push through my temples. Directly trough my skull. Until we would completely disappear. And that was what we did every day. Time spent together was simply a cascade of pictures and feelings coming together and creating one definitive picture. Not even a moment. A picture that you can still hear the breathing circulate upon.

A lot of people you will meet will complain about where it is they live. "I want to get out of here," they will say. And at the time you might agree. But then when you think about it, you realize that where you are is all you have ever known. So in reality you have no right in saying such a thing. And with this knowledge, I am happy. I am no longer in this category of travelers. But rather, delicately placed in the ignorant section of people in life.

Every morning I walk to school. In the winter, it's cold. In the summer, it's hot. In the spring, you're getting the scents of summer as all of last year's memories drain back into your head. And that's where I always want to be. The summer is my favorite time. There's nothing better for a 17 year old boy to love more than summer.

Every morning there's a small girl trotting next to me. All the way across the street. There are two sidewalks. Me on one, she on the other. It goes like this everyday. She never talks to me. In fact, she doesn't say anything at all. I don't even see her in school. The only moments we share together are these few before school. If you consider it sharing, that is. She takes them all as I waste mine looking at her.

But this is how it goes and this is how I like it. In fact, I even hope that these days of silence will ultimately build up and then just explode. And she and I will talk and talk and share infinite time together.

It's a Monday morning. The usual drag of it has already sunk in by the time I step out onto my front doorstep. It is early May and the weather has already started to grow warm. So by now I usually start my days off very well, even though my lack of contact with the small girl across the street stays on my mind all day, constantly. And there isn't really much I can do about it, as I'm shy. More shy around new people than the average shy person.

And so the day goes on. Nothing ever happens. I get to school and see my usual friends. They're just a clump of people who don't really know what's going on. And they play head games and play with drugs and have sex with each other. But I like it, and I love them. And as far as friends go, we're all closer than the average friends.

Every day I see the small girl at school. She has a lot of friends. She has more followers than friends, I think. She's normal, too. And she doesn't stand out. She's just there, and there across the street every morning. And there in my head. And there terrifying me.

Recently I have taken my life and looked at it from an outside screen. I think back to the classes I had during the day and I can barely remember them. And once I do remember, I think back and don't understand how it could have been me…in my body. Ever since I found myself thinking about this girl, that's what I feel like. Like I'm living a dream. And sometimes I put my hands to the sky to see if I can make myself wake up, or break through this plastic net that I'm in. And when I realize I can't, I'm upset.

I can't drive. I can't get very good grades. I can't just go through a day normally. But I tend to ignore it as it doesn't even bother me that much.

One day in my life, this girl across the street came and talked to me. "Every morning," she said with a smile. "And we never even talk."

I wasn't sure what to say. I didn't even know what kind of person she was. Was she somebody who made you feel stupid with every action you make? Or was she just sort of there, ready to listen to anything that you have to say.

"I'm…sorry." I was already off to a bad start, and already I wanted out. So I dug deep into the back of my head and realized that all I needed to do was pretend that everything was a dream.

"Well let's change something here..how about we talk sometimes. Maybe we could be friends." She stopped walking and put out her hand. With a stern face and deep voice, she said, "Hello, I'm Rinoa." She held out her hand and I smiled and shook it.

"I'm Squall."

So that's what happened, and from that moment on, it was like that every morning. We would walk outside and shake hands and continue to walk. Sometimes we talked a lot, and other times we did not talk at all.

By the looks of it, it was as if Rinoa was a small girl. But when you got to know her, she was extremely mature. She could carry on a conversation with an elder philosopher for hours if she wished. It was as if nothing bad could touch her, because she always had a way to get out of any situation. And this contributed to my desire.

Everyday it just grows more and more and now it's hard to not act on it. I guess this is where it starts. Is this where it starts? Well, I hope so. My life is just a lousy churn of events, day in, day out. Nothing special. Except the knife sticking in my foot. I don't want to look back at this time in my life as being a boy waiting to be picked up by their mother's car, standing in the middle of their road. Their shoes were once off, but now they are back on again.


End file.
